Doña Ana County ensured every vote was counted

COMMENTARY: People are generally relieved to see an end to all the election-related commercials, phone calls and door knocking. Most people believe the end of Election Day marks the end of an election. This is a common misconception.

In the entire election administration process, Election Day is only one piece of a much bigger puzzle. I am writing this article as an individual who spent two years in election administration and still spends every day advocating for fair and accessible elections.

County clerk offices all over the state start preparing for an election months in advance. The Election Handbook of the State of New Mexico is over 350 pages long, and county clerk’s offices follow each law and each clause in it to the tee.

These details cover everything related to the election process, from something as seemingly little as supplies to the statewide certification of election results. These descriptive laws provide for consistency in election administration across the state.

There are some factors that affect a county’s ability to have a seemingly flawless election. At the top of this list is voter turnout. This is a human component that really cannot be predicted. This year in Doña Ana County, voter turnout was 61,328, which is 47 percent higher than the turnout for the last midterm election in 2014.

The number of people who voted absentee in 2014 in Doña Ana County was 2,538. This year, there was a record-breaking increase of 236 percent in absentee ballots.

These are all numbers we should be proud of. Higher voter turnout means a higher level of civic engagement and better accountability amongst our elected officials. The Doña Ana County Clerk’s Office worked tirelessly all throughout 2018 to get eligible voters registered and encourage people to exercise their right to vote. Their hard work showed, not only on Election Day this year, but also in the weeks before it, when thousands of voters turned out to vote early or mailed in their absentee ballots.

Doña Ana County has been recognized as a champion for democracy in the state this election cycle.

As such, it is no surprise that so many eyes were on us on election night. New Mexico’s Congressional District 2 had been a tight race since the beginning. There really was no predicting who the winner would be. As the polls closed and results started rolling in, media outlets started to declare a winner. The problem with that: not all ballots had been counted. The only available results on election night from Doña Ana County were from Election Day voters.

Why did Doña Ana County have so many ballots uncounted at the end of Election Day?

There are simple answers, none of which point to fraud or corruption. According to the Election Handbook, the absentee board can begin processing absentee ballots five days before Election Day. It also states that absentee ballots can only be processed between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. on those days, and starting at 7 a.m. on Election Day.

It is not the County Clerk’s Office that processes and counts absentee ballots. This is the job of the absentee board, which is comprised largely of the same group of people who worked the polls for in-person, early voting.

In-person, early voting ended on Saturday, Nov. 3. The absentee board came in the next day to start the process of opening and counting absentee ballots, as directed by law. That Sunday, Monday and Tuesday these people worked long days. By the time the members of the absentee board went home on election night, they were exhausted beyond belief, and because of the high numbers of voters who voted absentee, as well as the higher number of provisional ballots, there were still several thousand ballots that remained to be counted.

The absentee board continued working tirelessly for the next few days to ensure that all votes were counted. In the end, though a couple of days later than people were hoping for, we can be assured that all votes have been counted and we now have election results that have been certified to be correct.

I believe we all should agree that having correct results that account for every single ballot cast is much more important than being able to declare a winner on election night. The County Clerk’s Office and the Absentee Board made sure that we got an election that was administered according to the law, and in a transparent manner.

Ashley Beyer is the southern New Mexico organizer for FairVote New Mexico. She also works with a number of other election reform groups. Agree with her opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary here.